Mission Update -- 6/9/10

Elders McMullin and Gonzalez have a baptism coming up on June 19th! Here's Elder M's email:



Hello Family,

How are you doing? I hope you are having a great day! Things are going well here. I hope you are all healthy! Are you excited for Sandy Ogie? It should be fun!

So, our investigators are doing great. Melbria is getting ready for her baptism and is very excited. She asked Bishop Baxter to do the baptism when we were at church! He's getting really excited also, so it's perfect. Our other investigators are progressing, and we've been able to meet a lot of people finding.

Here's a day to day summary of some things that have gone on:

Last Wednesday was really fun! We did the preparation stuff, and had a great time at the church with the District. We all bought some cheap Nerf guns, and had a huge fight. It was really fun actually. We're going to do the same thing again today, which should be fun. We went to dinner at Sister Tomasello's home and ate dinner there with the Beers. After that, we went by Melbria's.

Thursday was a good day. We had Zone Conference. It was President and Sister Roach's last Zone Conference, which was pretty sad. They had the "silver plates," which they had found which were written just like Nephi's plates. It talked about every area and missionary in the Zone, and also had some writings from President and Sister Roach. It was pretty funny. We had one of the Spanish Wards make lunch for us, and it was pozole, which is really good. After Zone Conference, we came back to the Morgan Park church house and helped with another funeral. People just keep passing away around here. We then went to go out to find, and I believe found some potentials. We got an appointment with one that seemed pretty excited. We also met a couple of Hispanic people for Elder Gonzalez to teach in Espanol. We had an appointment with the Motts too, which went really well. They're a great family.

Friday was pretty good. We started proselyting and went out to the Mitchells home. We read out of the Book of Mormon there. We then went to teach Van, who is doing pretty well. We then had some time to find before getting to teach Alfreda. She's the lady we met while trying to stop by formers. She is actually really great! One of our top investigators now. We had a great appointment there. We then went to the Leals for dinner. It had been over a year and a half since going there, and it was great. They're an awesome family, and are going to continue having us over. We then went by Melbria's.

Saturday we did Weekly Planning (usually Thursday, but we had been busy). We also ate some grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch (meal #1). We then went out to teach someone we had tracted into, but just like Mom's appointment with an investigator, it fell through. [I told him in my email to him that the missionaries here in Tempe had asked me to go visit some investigators. I set up the appointment, but when I got there, the investigators weren't home. Brad says that is called getting "tubed", so I guess I was "tubed" just like the missionaries :-)] We then went by a less actives home, and had a lesson there. She gave us sandwiches (meal #2), and a watermelon. We took the watermelon home, and made smoothies out of it and some strawberries we had (meal #3). We then went to meet with Brother Butler, and give his brother a blessing. He bought us too much McDonald's (meal #4 - 2 chicken sandwiches, both of which were close to 400 calories)! We then went over to teach one of Sister Tomasello's friends. We watched a DVD there. Sister T gave Elder Gonzalez some candy (meal #4.5). We then went by the Prewitt's home and found out Sister Prewitt had bought a ton of food for us! We had a bunch of fried chicken, greens, mac n cheese, rolls, and cake! She made sure we ate up too. We were dying as we consumed meal #5! Dad, you told us in a letter we should get fried chicken, and that it is only greasy on the outside... We've had Harold's, which is the famous south side joint, and also this chicken, and some other chicken... It definitely is greasy on the inside as well as the outside! It is deadly (you can't got more than 5 minutes without seeing an ambulance around here), but it does taste good. After that, we went over to Melbria's.

Sunday was great. We went around to do stop bys before church. We had choir, which was fun. We then had MCM. After that, we had church. Melbria asked Bishop to baptize her, which was great. He gave her a Neal A Maxwell book to read, and she has loved it. She is doing so well at church, and is here to stay. The rest of church was great too. Van is doing well at church too. He, Sister Ervin and Brother Cunningham all went to the same school on the near south side. Pretty neat. We then went to dinner at the Schields' home. They are such an awesome part active family! The husband doesn't come to the church, but is great! We had a good time. He is a cop, and works up in Englewood, where I was in Stockyards. He had some stories from there. After that, we went to give Sister Tomasello the sacrament. She got cleared to come this week now, so that will be great. We then went to stop by Melbria.

Monday was a pretty good day. We had an appointment fall through before District Meeting. We then had our meeting, which went well. A neighborhood kid walked in during our meeting, which was pretty unusual, but hopefully he'll turn out to be a good investigator for Beverly. We had quite a few (5) appointments fall through Monday, but it was still good. Elder Gonzalez fell and sprained his ankle after we taught the less active Lebron (who should be good for church this Sunday). He felt no good, so we had a tough day. He got a blessing in the evening though, and woke up feeling totally fine, even though his foot is bruised. We did get to see quite a few of the people we wanted to teach though. We saw Alfreda, and set up another appointment to teach her. She was running a restaurant out of her front yard, and gave us some chicken, which was great. She's a really nice lady. We also got to see a mail lady we had talked to while tracting a couple of days earlier. We also went by and taught Melbria.

Tuesday was a good day. We only had 4 appointments cancel! We were actually quite busy. We taught Alfreda in the morning, and that went great. She should be at church this week. She gave us more chicken, which was great. We went by to watch Our Heavenly Father's Plan at Sister Tomasello's building. It is beginning to look like another Maple Terrace, just with old people instead of section 8 people! We then went to the Mitchell's home. They're a part member family. Sister Mitchell is semi active, and is pretty awesome. We then went by the Prewitts and put up a new closet hanger rod. We had dinner, then went by Melbria's home. We had some of our tracting in the rain this day, which was fun. I have an enormous umbrella that I found in an apartment. It completely dwarfs Elder Gonzalez's baby umbrella.

Today is going to be great! We've got 3 appointments for the evening too. One is with a new guy we called out of the area book. The other is with Van. The 3rd is with Melbria.

Tomorrow we've got some good appointments set up too!

Well, I love you all so much! I appreciate all you do for me! I'm loving my mission, and am grateful for the opportunity I have to serve. It has blessed me so much. Keep sharing the Gospel... It's true!

Love,

Elder Bradley E McMullin